After Dark
by Tricki
Summary: "So, what does a girl have to do to get broken out of gaol in this day and age?"  Queries his wife brightly. Nights are between the two of them.  This is one of those nights.  Doctor/River


**AN**: Well, I just want to say this is my first Doctor Who story and I am nervous as hell. Any timeline cockups are my bad. I'm not sure she's a professor at this stage, I just enjoy making them say it :p I also want to say, I had stupid amounts of fun writing this. I love them.

**Pair**: Doctor/River

**Set**: Somewhere post-marriage.

**Spoilers**: I think there are probably general references to the entire season 6, but nothing really specific.

Enjoy! x

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><p>When he arrives in her cell, she's asleep, lying on her side with her back to him. Her bottom leg is extended, while her top leg is bent at a perfect right angle. Her arm is extended over her leg, and in the dim light he does not notice that her fingers are carefully wound around her sonic screwdriver. He shifts his weight as he watches her sleep, but the rustle of his clothes rouses her. She twists from the waist with lightening speed, her arm extended and her screwdriver trained on him. The screwdriver ordinarily wouldn't bother him, except that he has recently been made aware of her modifying it to include a concealed blaster.<p>

On sight of him she softens, cocking her elbow so it looks slightly less like she's trying to kill him, and a smile breaks over her face.

"Hello, sweetie." She says with a voice so silky and seductive that Lauren Bacall would spontaneously combust with envy.

"Lovely way to be greeted, Professor." Replies The Doctor flippantly.

"Cybermen. One can never be too careful."

"We don't have any Cybermen coming up, do we?" His attempt to trick her fails miserably.

Her lips tweak wickedly. "_Spoilers_," she intones meaningfully. Of course, they don't actually have any Cybermen attacks coming up in his future, but she enjoys planting seeds of doom and destruction in his pretty head.

"I think you're having me on, River Song." He says as she kicks her legs over the edge of her standard-issue prison cot and stands. "I think you're plotting to kill me."

"Oh, don't worry, sweetie, I would never kill you." He gives her a meaningful look. "Well, except that one little time." She dismisses.

"Hm, I counted two." He jibes, inching towards her. "You know, when you take into account – "

"Oh, shut up." She grins, and stops his mouth with a forceful but loving kiss. His hand comes up and begins fingering her lush curls.

"How could I refuse such an eloquently worded request, Miss Song?"

"I am no more a 'Miss' than you are an M.D." She says, nipping his neck for emphasis.

"Ooo, and she _bites_! I knew there was a reason I let you force me into an arranged marriage."

"Force? Who forced?" Demands the professor, pushing him back by the shoulders so that he can see the playful warning in her eyes.

"Well, you do use force when it suits you."

"Handcuffs don't count as force, sweetie; they're _restraints_." Her eyes twinkle while she explains this, and she does something akin to lightly skipping across her cell to collect some necessities: a gun and a pair of high heels, all of which she dangles over her left index finger, the shoes from their straps and the gun from its trigger.

"So, what does a girl have to do to get broken out of gaol in this day and age?" Queries his wife brightly.

"Something along the lines of _this_." Replies The Doctor, taking her by the lower half of her waist and pulling her to him. Her breasts press against his chest, and he kisses her at a pace designed to annoy her: slow and measured.

"Come on, sexy, let's get you out of here." He says once they break apart.

"You'll make the TARDIS jealous." She jokes, letting him do the sonic honours on the gate.

"She already doesn't like you, anyway."

"Excuse me? She _loves_ me."

"Even after you shot her?"

"I'm a _child of the TARDIS_; we're innately connected!" She insisted.

"Yes, dear." He teases, his tone a pantomime of weariness. "Anyway, regardless of what hostility or lack of hostility there may be between you and my sexy little blue box – "

"- There isn't any." She interrupts, one eyebrow raised high and formed into a perfect arch. He does not reply, instead he straightens and gestures to the now wide open door to her cell. Her lips form a silent 'oh'.

"Lead on, fair maiden." He says grandly, with a dramatic sweep of his arm and half bow.

"Well, I wouldn't want to upset the TARDIS." Replies River petulantly. She would fold her arms over her chest, but her hands are too full.

"Oh, don't be like that, Song! You know what they say: 'a psychotic professor in a cage puts a Time Lord in a rage'." He wins a laugh with his comment, the deep throaty chuckle that's his favourite, and he knows he's done well. With sprightliness that belies his near-thousand years of life he ends up behind her, hands running down her arms to grip them mid forearm and he shuffles her forward, smiling into her ear and watching her try not to smile.

"So, what do you want me to introduce you as these days? Is it 'Professor Mrs Doctor' now, or 'Mrs Professor Doctor'?"

She grins, twists her head to peck his cheek, and succumbs to being pushed towards the other woman in his life: his TARDIS.

"No, Pretty Boy; I hyphenate. It's: Professor Mrs Doctor-Song."

"Not Professor Mrs Doctor-Pond-Song, then?"

"I've spent hundreds of years as River Song. Melody Pond is a girl I hardly remember."

"Liar. You remember everything."

"I was being hyperbolic."

"Hyperbaric?"

"Shut up!" She laughs happily.

"You know, you say that to me rather a lot. I'm starting to feel like an abused husband."

"Already? I haven't even brought out the whip yet."

Her comment is lost to the ages as they reach the doors of the TARDIS. He lifts her right arm, takes her screwdriver from her fingers, and curls his arm across her stomach. "Open sesame." He whispers into her ear, glancing meaningfully at her fingers.

"I know we have a special bond, the TARDIS and I, but she won't open for me."

"Oh how the mighty have fallen little miss _I'm-A-Child-Of-The-TARDIS_." He mimicks her melodramatically.

Bristling at the challenge she snaps her fingers with a resounding _click_, and the doors of the TARDIS swing inwards to grant her admittance.

"Oh, well, look at that, you were right." She comments breezily as she shrugs him off. "Hello gorgeous," this last directed to the TARDIS itself as River runs her now free right hand down the doorjamb reverently.

"Sweetie, I think you should get your age-defying posterior in here before a fit of feminine whimsy makes me change the locks."

"You wouldn't." Replies the Time Lord cockily, twirling her Sonic Screwdriver around his finger to annoy her, to see if he can make her dive on top of him and wrestle it from his grasp.

With a feat of self control second to none, she somehow manages to look bored. "Alright old girl, let's shut up shop. Ooo, that's not a bad idea actually. You, me, and a Parisian shopping spree!" And with that River turns on the ball of her bare foot and the TARDIS' doors begin to slowly close. The Doctor, not being the idiot he sometimes appears to be, nimbly dives through the shutting doors and pounces on his wife from behind, making her yelp with surprise.

"You are _evil_, River Song." He purrs while crushing her in his arms.

"Doctor-My-Doctor," she coos, "I'm a psychopath; I'm not intrinsically _evil._"

"I'll concede that point – "

"- A rarity – "

"But you are a very wicked woman." He completes his sentence as if she hadn't spoken, and punctuates the second half of it with open mouthed kisses distributed across her shoulder.

"Oh, now _wicked_ I'll confess to. Wicked is delicious. Evil is just passé this season."

While he's laughing and silently bashing his head against her shoulder, she takes the opportunity to turn in his arm. "Now, are we going to natter all night, or are you going to take me to bed?"

"Actually, I was going to take you to Mercury tonight. Have you been? The carnival's in town - it's going to be _phenomenal_."

Her eyes sparkle with affection at his childlike enthusiasm, but, regardless of this, she says "bed will be better," and runs a maddening finger down the edge of his suspender. "So much so that you'll have to invent a better word."

"Well, in that case..." His face is deadpan, but he bolts off to one of the many doorways within the seemingly little blue box, shedding his jacket as he goes. River doesn't move, merely watches him with amusement, her shoes still dangling from her finger. His head pops back around the corner.

"Are you coming, or is this a one man show?" He quips, and a slow smile pulls at her lips. Before her smile has reached maturity he's back in front of her, pecking her with brief, hard kisses.

"River, come on," he kisses her more lingeringly now, and her fingers find the ends of his floppy brown hair. "You can't tie me in knots and then take away the instruction manual!" He whines childishly. Her brow furrows, and he sees her thinking '_you're mixing your metaphors, sweetie'_ before the words actually pass her lips. "Not my finest moment of linguistic brilliance but I lay the blame solely with you." Says The Doctor pointedly.

"Do you have a proper bed, yet?" She asks, somehow managing to affect a tone of disinterest, even while her heart is beating out a song specifically composed for him.

"_Why_ does everyone who ever travels with me have some pathological vendetta against bunk beds?" Demands the Time Lord petulantly.

Again the professor smiles. "Because _we_ are all grownups." Is her edifying response. It's her turn to kiss him now, slowly and with impossible delicacy.

"I just like being on the top." He grumbles, and then realises his mistake as her eyes flash wickedly. "I walked right into that, didn't I?"

She nods, and even though she could leave it there, she replies with a highly suggestive: "I'm sure we can find other ways of achieving that. For some of the night, at least."

His concession is a series of kisses that lasts all the way to the bedroom, and while his lips are against hers she can forget that the next time she sees him he will know her less. Tonight he knows all of her.


End file.
